The Maisey Yates Collection : Cowboy Heroes: Take Me, Cowboy / Hold Me, Cowboy / Seduce Me, Cowboy / Claim Me, Cowboy / The Rancher's Baby

“It’s cold,” she snapped.

The maddening man raised his eyebrows, shooting her a look that clearly said suit yourself, then set about looking for the fuse box.

She let out an exasperated sigh and followed his path, stopping when she saw him examining the little black switches inside the box.

“It’s not a fuse. That means there’s something else going on.” He slammed the door shut. Then he turned back to look at her. “You should come to my cabin.”

* * *

Hold Me, Cowboy is part of the Copper Ridge series from New York Times bestselling author Maisey Yates

Dear Reader (#u0bb25d23-7455-5d58-8d3d-5477659751b5),

I’m delighted to welcome you back to Copper Ridge, Oregon. This series is all about community, family, love and hot cowboys. And in Hold Me, Cowboy, it’s Christmas in Copper Ridge, which means sparkling lights, chilly days and even colder nights. Except the hero and heroine in this book have found a way to make the nights a whole lot warmer!

I always enjoy writing a book where opposites attract. Because the explosion when irritation turns to passion is always so incredibly intense.

That’s just one of the many reasons that I had to pair my rough blacksmith hero, Sam McCormack, with prickly socialite Madison West. The two of them push all the wrong buttons in each other. But they push all the right ones, too. And when a snowstorm sees them both stranded up in the mountains, all that simmering anger turns into something else entirely. They figure having twelve passionate nights before Christmas to burn off all that attraction should be just about perfect. But in the end, it may not be so easy to walk away.

If you enjoy Maddy and Sam and your time in Copper Ridge, I hope you’ll check out more stories in the series. Also from Harlequin Desire is Take Me, Cowboy, which features Sam’s brother Chase. And you can read about the rest of the West family in One Night Charmer, Tough Luck Hero and Last Chance Rebel, out now from HQN Books.

Happy reading!

Maisey

To KatieSauce, the sister I was always waiting for. What a joy it is to have you in my life.

One (#u0bb25d23-7455-5d58-8d3d-5477659751b5)

“Creative photography,” Madison West muttered as she entered the security code on the box that contained the key to the cabin she would be staying in for the weekend.

She looked across the snowy landscape to see another home situated far too close to the place she would be inhabiting for the next couple of days. The photographs on the vacation-rental website hadn’t mentioned that she would be sharing the property with anyone else.

And obviously, the example pictures had been taken from inventive angles.

It didn’t matter. Nothing was going to change her plans. She just hoped the neighbors had earplugs. Because she was having sex this weekend. Nonstop sex.

Ten years celibate, and it was ending tonight. She had finally found the one. Not the one she was going to marry, obviously. Please. Love was for other people. People who hadn’t been tricked, manipulated and humiliated when they were seventeen.

No, she had no interest in love and marriage. But she had abundant interest in orgasms. So much interest. And she had found the perfect man to deliver them.

All day, all night, for the next forty-eight hours.

She was armed with a suitcase full of lingerie and four bottles of wine. Neighbors be damned. She’d been hoping for a little more seclusion, but this was fine. It would be fine.

She unlocked the door and stepped inside, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw that the interior, at least, met with her expectations. But it was a little bit smaller than it had looked online, and she could only hope that wasn’t some sort of dark portent for the rest of her evening.

She shook her head; she was not going to introduce that concern into the mix, thank you very much. There was enough to worry about when you were thinking about breaking ten years of celibacy without adding such concerns.

Christopher was going to arrive soon, so she figured she’d better get upstairs and start setting a scene. She made her way to the bedroom, then opened her suitcase and took out the preselected bit of lace she had chosen for their first time. It was red, which looked very good on her, if a bit obvious. But she was aiming for obvious.

Christopher wasn’t her boyfriend. And he wasn’t going to be. He was a very nice equine-vitamin-supplement salesman she’d met a few weeks ago when he’d come by the West estate. She had bought some products for her horses, and they’d struck up a conversation, which had transitioned into a flirtation.

Typically, when things began to transition into flirtation, Maddy put a stop to them. But she hadn’t with him. Maybe because he was special. Maybe because ten years was just way too long. Either way, she had kept on flirting with him.

They’d gone out for drinks, and she’d allowed him to kiss her. Which had been a lot more than she’d allowed any other guy in recent years. It had reminded her how much she’d enjoyed that sort of thing once upon a time. And once she’d been reminded...well.

He’d asked for another date. She’d stopped him. Because wouldn’t a no-strings physical encounter be way better?

He’d of course agreed. Because he was a man.

But she hadn’t wanted to get involved with anyone in town. She didn’t need anyone seeing her at a hotel or his house or with his car parked at her little home on her parents’ property.

Thus, the cabin-weekend idea had been born.

She shimmied out of her clothes and wiggled into the skintight lace dress that barely covered her backside. Then she set to work fluffing her blond hair and applying some lipstick that matched the lingerie.

She was not answering the door in this outfit, however.

She put her long coat back on over the lingerie, then gave her reflection a critical look. It had been a long time since she had dressed to attract a man. Usually, she was more interested in keeping them at a distance.

“Not tonight,” she said. “Not tonight.”

She padded downstairs, peering out the window and seeing nothing beyond the truck parked at the small house across the way and a vast stretch of snow, falling harder and faster.

Typically, it didn’t snow in Copper Ridge, Oregon. You had to drive up to the mountains—as she’d done today—to get any of the white stuff. So, for her, this was a treat, albeit a chilly one. But that was perfect, since she planned to get her blood all heated and stuff.

She hummed, keeping an eye on the scene outside, waiting for Christopher to pull in. She wondered if she should have brought a condom downstairs with her. Decided that she should have.

She went back upstairs, taking them two at a time, grateful that she was by herself, since there was nothing sexy about her ascent. Then she rifled through her bag, found some protection and curled her fingers around it before heading back down the stairs as quickly as possible.

As soon as she entered the living area, the lights flickered, then died. Suddenly, everything in the house seemed unnaturally quiet, and even though it was probably her imagination, she felt the temperature drop several degrees.

“Are you kidding me?” she asked, into the darkness.

There was no answer. Nothing but a subtle creak from the house. Maybe it was all that heavy snow on the roof. Maybe it was going to collapse. That would figure.

A punishment for her thinking she could be normal and have sex.

A shiver worked its way down her spine, and she jolted.

Suddenly, she had gone from hopeful and buoyant to feeling a bit flat and tragic. That was definitely not the best sign.

No. She wasn’t doing this. She wasn’t sinking into self-pity and tragedy. Been there, done that for ten years, thank you.

Madison didn’t believe in signs. So there. She believed in fuses blowing in bad weather when overtaxed heaters had to work too hard in ancient houses. Yes, that she believed in. She also believed that she would have to wait for Christopher to arrive to fix the problem.

She sighed and then made her way over to the kitchen counter and grabbed hold of her purse as she deposited the two condoms on the counter. She pulled her phone out and grimaced when she saw that she had no signal.